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Welcome to the Opiate Addiction & Treatment Resource

The Opiate Addiction & Treatment Resource (OATR) is a website based in North America which aims to provide accurate, up-to-date information about opioids, addiction and dependence, and available treatment options to the public. We believe in harm reduction policies, practices, and programs that address the adverse effects of drug use, and we are supporters of international drug policy reform. Our Methadone Clinic Directory serves to further our goal of improving access to existing treatment options for opioid addiction. Additionally, you may want to consider online directories of national drug treatment facilities like US Rehab Network and their free addiction recovery information. Contact information is available on this page.

A couple months late on this one, but back in July, a new type of buprenorphine treatment received FDA approval. The drug is branded under the name Probuphine and is being marketed as a buprenorphine implant that will last for 6-months, requiring only 2 treatments per year. This is an interesting development because both methadone and oral buprenorphine (Suboxone) maintenance - the two most dominant types of maintenance treatment for opioid addiction - both require that the patient dose daily.

Below was taken from an article about Probuphine on drugrehab.org. The page contains a lot of info and covers the most frequently asked questions. Read more below and check out the rest of the page, as it looks like a good starting resource to learn about this new opiate addiction treatment method.

Death from opioid abuse
– including heroin and prescription painkillers – is at an all-time
high in the United States. But a new treatment option could be a “game
changer” in the fight against opioid addiction, experts say.

Probuphine®, a tiny implant inserted into the arm, delivers a
constant low dose of buprenorphine – a medication already used to treat
opioid addiction – for six months.

The implant offers advantages over taking a daily pill or sublingual
film of buprenorphine. Treatment compliance is far less of a challenge,
since patients can’t skip, forget or abuse their medication. They also
don’t have to deal with getting a prescription refilled. Some doctors
say the implant is safer and easier to tolerate because it delivers even
levels of buprenorphine into the bloodstream. The long-acting implant
also reduces the risk of accidental ingestion by a child, and diversion
of buprenorphine for illegal resale.

Baltimore - Several weeks after the death of Freddie Gray, in which six police officers have now been charged in connection with his death, more 'federal agents' (ie, DEA officers) are being sent to Baltimore to assist in investigating the mass looting of prescription drugs during riots following Gray's death. Apparently, the thefts of over 175,000 doses of narcotics have been reported from 27 different locations in Baltimore, and the number of stolen narcotics is actually expected to be much larger as many of the thefts (possibly up to half) have not yet been reported.

Freddie Gray died on April 19 while in police custody. Mass riots and looting then broke out and it was reported in USA Today that May was "one of the most violent periods in the city in nearly four decades, with 43 murders reported." An excerpt from the article published on USA Today that is dated June 5th is available below. The complete article can be read by following the link at the end of the excerpt.

Additional federal agents are being dispatched to Baltimore to assist in the investigation of mass prescription drug thefts from 27 pharmacies and clinics during rioting following the April 19 death of Freddie Gray while in police custody.

An estimated 175,000 doses of narcotics have been reported missing; authorities have expressed concern that the wash of drugs may be a trigger for the recent spike in violence.

Last month was one of the most violent periods in the city in nearly four decades, with 43 murders reported.

Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Todd Edwards said Friday that about 10 additional agents would likely be deployed from Washington to assist in the theft investigations.

Edwards said that fewer than half of the drug entities have filed loss reports, indicating that the estimated drug losses would likely rise.

The pharmacies and clinics were looted in the wave of rioting prompted by Gray's death following his arrest by local police.

For the first time in North America, prescription heroin is being offered outside of a clinical trial. The first patients who will receive the prescription heroin had previously participated in a study in Vancouver that looked at using prescription heroin as a treatment option for opioid addiction. You can read more below in an article published yesterday on CBC News.

Vancouver has become the first city in North America where prescription heroin is offered to addicts outside of a clinical trial. For more than a year, doctors at Providence Health Care have been battling with federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose over the right to continue prescribing heroin to patients who had finished being part of a clinical research trial.

In May, the doctors won an injunction at B.C. Supreme Court, allowing them to receive prescription heroin through Health Canada and supply the drug to 120 of the severely addicted people who were previously part of the trial. Now, doctors at the Crosstown Clinic — located in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and run by Providence Health Care — have received their first batch of prescription heroin produced in a lab in Switzerland. They were to begin dispensing the drug today.

It's the first time in North America that a clinic has been able to dispense heroin outside of a trial, a spokesman for Providence Health Care hold CBC News today.

Dr. Scott MacDonald, who runs the Crosstown Clinic, said the first patients to receive prescription heroin outside of a clinical trial will be a small number of people who took part in his two research trials, and want to remain under medical care. "It is very dangerous and life destroying to have to ingest in an alley, to use illicit heroin three, four times a day. That destroys lives. This is an alternative," he said.

MacDonald says some patients who took part in the trials have been able to reconnect with families and bring stability back to their lives, instead of shooting up in alleyways three or four times a day. "I think all the clinicians at the clinic have seen the great beneficial effect that this treatment can have on people — hard-to-reach populations that may have been using on the streets for 15, 20, 25 even 30 years," he said.

"There is a small percentage of people who aren't engaged in treatment with methadone, the standard treatments. We don't have enough options for them. This is one option, and we need it here in Vancouver."

MacDonald said about 120 patients will be able to access the heroin at his clinic today, and he has applied to have a further 30 to 40 people be able to access the drug. All of the patients must use the drug under the care of a doctor, at the Crosstown Clinic, and cannot take the heroin to use somewhere else, MacDonald said.

I've added a few new websites to the links and resources page, including two blogs I've recently discovered. The whole links page has also been revamped a bit so it looks a bit less cluttered.

First is Studio L Online, authored by K. Lanktree, self-described Freelance Writer, Recovering Opiate Addict, Former IV Drug User, Methadone Patient and Harm Reduction Advocate. The second blog I came across is The Methadone Maze, a unique blog run by a couple who share their experiences of navigating through the maze that is methadone maintenance treatment. Coincidentally, the authors of both of these blogs are MMT patients who reside in Ontario, which is also where I am from. The site gets quite a few visitors from Ontario as well so I am sure they will find these two blogs especially interesting.

And finally is streetRX, a unique site that displays on a map the latest street prices people have paid for prescription drugs. Several countries are covered, including Canada and the U.S.A., as well as Australia, the UK, and a few other European countries. The site allows visitors to anonymously submit street prices paid for specific prescription drugs. All three of these sites are definitely worth a visit and a bookmark.

Here is an excerpt from an article that was recently published on Bloomberg Businessweek dealing with Vermont's shift in drug policy from prosecution towards treatment. The complete article can be accessed using the link at the bottom of the post.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin devoted his entire State of the State address in January to what he called Vermont’s “full-blown heroin crisis.” Since 2000, he said, the state had seen a 250 percent increase in addicts receiving treatment. The courts were swamped with heroin-related cases. In 2013 the number of people charged with heroin trafficking in federal court in Vermont increased 135 percent from the year before, according to federal records. Shumlin, a Democrat, urged the legislature to approve a new set of drug policies that go beyond the never-ending cat-and-mouse between cops and dealers. Along with a crackdown on traffickers, he proposed rigorous addiction prevention programs in schools and doctors’ offices, as well as more rehabilitation options for addicts. “We must address it as a public health crisis,” Shumlin said, “providing treatment and support rather than simply doling out punishment, claiming victory, and moving on to our next conviction.”

Vermont has passed a battery of reforms that have turned the tiny state of about 627,000 people into a national proving ground for a less punitive approach to getting hard drugs under control. Under policies now in effect or soon to take hold, people caught using or in possession of heroin will be offered the chance to avoid prosecution by enrolling in treatment. Addicts, including some prisoners, will have greater access to synthetic heroin substitutes to help them reduce their dependency on illegal narcotics or kick the habit. A good Samaritan law will shield heroin users from arrest when they call an ambulance to help someone who’s overdosed. The drug naloxone, which can reverse the effects of a heroin or opioid overdose, will be carried by cops, EMTs, and state troopers. It will also be available at pharmacies without a prescription. “This is an experiment,” Shumlin says. “And we’re not going to really know the results for a while.”